Life made straitOn purpose to make sweet the life at large.
Life made straitOn purpose to make sweet the life at large.
Life made straitOn purpose to make sweet the life at large.
Browning.
“You live,” said Lord Napier and Ettrick, in calling upon Miss Nightingale one day, “between a Palace and a Park, and have one of the best views in London.” A pilgrim who makes his way to No. 10 South Street and looks up to the tall, unpretentious house, now marked by a tablet recording the residence of Florence Nightingale in it, will not see the Palace, and may wonder how she can have had any view at all. The principal rooms, however, are at the back of the house, and on the upper floors command a view of the Park, across the grounds of Dorchester House—the finest of London's Italian “palaces.” Miss Nightingale was fond of the view, especially in spring mornings, but in the afternoons she moralized her landscape. In a letter to her father from South Street she quotedSamson Agonistes: “Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves.Since I have lived looking on the Park, and seen those people making their trivial round, or rather their treadmill round, blind slaves to it, I have scarce ever had that line out of my head. It will be a material alleviation to me if I have to spend September in London that the ‘mill’ is gone. Also, tho' my whole life is laid out to secure it against interruptions, no one could believe how much it is interrupted. And September diminishes this. Thebeggarsare out of town.” How strict was Miss Nightingale's rule against interruption, even from her best friends, is shown amusingly in some notes of this date from Lady Ashburton and her daughter. “I wish,”wrote Lady Ashburton, “that you would let me sit like a poor old rat in the corner, while you are at dinner; it is much wholesomer not to eat in solitude; but I know I shan't get in, so I can only leave this at the door.” “Mother bids me add a P.S. to my letter and ask with her dear love if you could see her any time to-day; she will talk through the keyhole and not detain you five minutes.”
“The nicest little house in London,” No. 10 was called by Lady Verney, whose own house was only a few doors off. The proximity did not altogether facilitate Florence's measures for security against interruption. There was underlying affection between the sisters, but at times each was acutely conscious of the other's shortcomings. Also each thought that the proximity was more valuable to the other than to herself. No. 10 had been taken by Mr. Nightingale on the advice of Sir Harry and Lady Verney, who thought it would be well for Florence to be near them. Florence, on her part, felt that she was often very useful to her sister. Their common friend, Madame Mohl, was sometimes in perplexity to decide which sister's hospitality to accept. “Go to the Verneys, if you prefer,” wrote Florence on one occasion; “butweshall have to do for you all the same. You know what her housekeeping is.Weshall have to send in clean sheets, and food, and scrub down the floors.” In one respect, the proximity of the two houses was certainly convenient to Florence. Sir Harry and Lady Verney took a willing share, as we shall hear presently, in the entertainment of Florence's nursing friends; and Sir Harry, the chairman of the Council of her Training School, was within easy call. She was not, however, accessible at all times in person, either to her sister or to her brother-in-law, any more than to others; much of the communication between them was by letter or message. In later years, however, a morning visit from Sir Harry was part of the day's routine. When still in full health, he was one of her chief links with the great world, bringing her its news and carrying out her behests with pride and alacrity. He was her senior by nineteen years, and he lived to be ninety-three. In his old age one of his great consolations was a morning call upon his sister-in-law, during which theyread together in some religious book of his choosing. He was of the old evangelical school, but in such matters except in opinion they did not disagree.
Miss Nightingale's manner of life made her messenger an important member of the South Street staff. She had taken a great and liberal interest in the Corps of Commissionaires established in 1859, and a Commissionaire was in her regular service, acting both as Cerberus and Mercury. Miss Nightingale's messenger must have been a familiar figure, with his notes for Dr. Sutherland, at the War Office, and, for the Matron, at St. Thomas's Hospital. For the rest, Miss Nightingale kept a staff of maidservants. Her own particular maid for many years was Temperance Hatcher; but at the time with which we are now concerned she had married one of Miss Nightingale's Crimean protégés, Peter Grillage,[182]who for some years had been a manservant at Embley. Miss Nightingale was much attached to this exemplary pair, constantly sent presents to them and their children, corresponded with them almost to the end of her life, and remembered them in her Will. At an earlier date Mr. Jowett in letters written after visits to Miss Nightingale—letters known as “roofers” by “the younger gown”—refers gratefully to the care of neat-handed Temperance. Miss Nightingale took infinite pains in the selection of her maids. Kind Mrs. Sutherland did much of the work in this sort for her, and when she was away in the country Mrs. Sutherland was often asked to keep an eye on South Street. Miss Nightingale's love of method and precision, her fondness for having everything in black and white, appear in many a formidable schedule of duties and requirements which she drew up for the information of applicants. Perhaps these had the effect of weeding out the unfit; for, with some exceptions, Miss Nightingale was well served: as was meet and right, for good mistresses make good servants, and she was solicitous of their comfort and welfare. She was an excellent housekeeper; and here again shebrought into play the methodical and critical habits which she had practised in larger spheres. I have seen a book in which a young cook entered the day'smenuand, on the following morning, the mistress wrote comments on each course—for the most part kindly and encouraging, but sometimes trenchant; as in this note uponstewed cutlets, “Why was the glue-pot used?”; or this upon a dish ofminced veal, “Meat hard, and remember that mincing makes hard meat harder.” Miss Nightingale was a small, though delicate, eater; it was for her visitors that she took most pains. Cakes of different kinds, fresh eggs, and coffee used to be sent regularly to St. Thomas's Hospital, to two wards every week; and meat soufflées and jelly were sent weekly to two invalids at Lea Hurst and one at Liverpool. If a nursing friend was coming to South Street, who was likely to want “feeding up,” or, suffering from overwork, would require to have her appetite coaxed, Miss Nightingale would draw up themenuherself, and write out her ownrecipesfor particular dishes. She had not served in the East with the great Soyer in vain. Her father, after his first visit to South Street, pronounced “Florence's maids and dinner perfect”; and the Crown Princess, going down to lunch by herself after seeing Miss Nightingale, sent word that the luncheon was “a work of art.”
Of Miss Nightingale as a hostess, and of the pleasures of South Street to her nursing visitors, one of her pupils who was often invited gives this account:—“Early tea, if you would accept it, was brought to you; and following close upon the housemaid, came Miss Nightingale's own maid to inquire how you had slept; and then to ask if you had any plans for the day or would like any visitor invited to lunch or otherwise. When this had been ascertained there came, by note or message, proposals for the vacant time; and an hour was appointed for your visit to her: that is, for the visit in chief, for you might have other glimpses of her during the day. She was always on the look-out to make your visit not only restful and restoring by all manner of materialcomfort, but to make it interesting and brightening as well. If the Verneys were in residence at No. 4, Miss Nightingale laid them under contribution for our entertainment, and right kindly did they both respond. Sometimes the guest went there to dinner, dining alone with Sir Harry and spending the time before and after with Lady Verney, then in some degree an invalid, in the drawing-room. The conversation there was amusing, relating to a world not centred in hospitals, for Sir Harry loved to talk of his early days in France and Spain. Lady Verney would sometimes take you driving with her, and as she was of the great world you were likely to have a peep at its attractions. Perhaps the carriage would be stopped while she chatted with Dean Stanley; or it would pause to allow of cards being left at some great house. Then Lady Verney would turn and tease her guest from the hospital about coming to town in the season and leaving cards at the French Embassy. Or Sir Harry would include you in his party, going to visit Miss Octavia Hill inherLondon Courts, and houses not at all resembling the Embassy. Or he would take you to the House of Commons when the Irish members were lively, and you would see Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Parnell, and have an exciting story to bring home to the Chief. Or it might be that you were taken to a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society where Stanley, surrounded by Dr. Moffat, Sir Samuel Baker, and other great travellers, was telling a crowded audience amid breathless silence how he crossed the Dark Continent.
But these pleasures which Miss Nightingale lavished on her workers and in which she shared only by sympathy, were not the event of the day to her visitor. The chief privilege was always the interview with herself. It was usually arranged to begin at half-past four and often lasted through several hours; sometimes with a short interval. At times Miss Nightingale was well enough to come down to the drawing-room and rest on a couch there while she received her guests. Couch or bed was always strewn with letters and papers, and a pencil was ever at hand. It was cheerful to find her on the couch, relieved from the imprisonment of the bed. She was dressed then in soft black silkwith a shawl over her feet; always the transparent white kerchief laid over her hair and tied under the chin. [The ‘transparent white kerchief’ was an exquisite little curtain of fine net, edged with real lace, often very fine; for Miss Nightingale was of the old-fashioned persuasion that a gentlewoman cannot wear imitation lace. Some of her lace was Buckinghamshire, made in cottages near Claydon.] Whether sad or glad, there was a bright smile of welcome. Once or twice I found her with her Persian kittens about, but they were soon dismissed. If you had come only for the interview on business, that might occupy all the time; though even on such occasions, business might be dispatched in time for other pleasant talk. But if you were staying in the house, though business was discussed and counsel given, a wide range was allowed to other conversation. Naturally you gave her an account of the day's doings; she entered into them with zest and was led on to other subjects. Sometimes she would speak of India and the Ryots; sometimes of Egypt and the Fellaheen; it was rare for her to touch upon the Crimean episode: if she did so, it was generally to speak with affectionate remembrance of Mrs. Bracebridge. Miss Nightingale encouraged her pupils to speak at these interviews, and it was a common matter of self-reproach with me that whereas I went desirous and resolved to listen, I had occupied too much of the time talking. However it was perhaps her design and gave her the best opportunities of helping her pupils. She listened to all one said with an open mind and made much of any point of which she approved. But now and again she flashed out a dissent, in a tone of maternal authority, and gave you a forcible exposition from the point of view of her powerful intellect and wide outlook. She was enthusiastic, but she was not a prey to illusions. Sometimes when there was not a clear contradiction, there was a quiet questioning. Indeed many of her lessons were given in the form of questions. Among our happiest subjects of conversation were the children in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale seemed never to weary of hearing of them; of their sufferings, their home circumstances, their pathetic knowledge of life, their heroic patience, their quaint sayings, their brave fun in intervalsof ease, their interest in one another, their thousand sweetnesses. Not the less was her sympathy given to the older patients, while the Nurses had, if possible, a still larger place in her regard.”
see captionFlorence Nightingale in her room in South Streetfrom a photograph by Miss Bosanquet, 1906
Florence Nightingale in her room in South Streetfrom a photograph by Miss Bosanquet, 1906
The room in which these treasured interviews took place was either the drawing-room, or Miss Nightingale's bedroom on the second floor—both at the back of the house. The bedroom had a crescent-shaped outer wall with pleasant French windows and flower-balconies. The bed stood between the windows and the door, with its foot facing the fireplace, and behind the bed was a long shelf conveniently placed for books and papers. There were always flowers in the room. Those in pots on a stand were provided by Mr. Rathbone (as already related) until his death; and a box of cut flowers was sent every week from Melchet Court by Lady Ashburton. The walls were white and there were no blinds or curtains; the room seemed full of light and flowers. What impressed visitors was the exquisite cleanliness and daintiness of all the appointments which served as the frame to their mistress. “It always seemed a beautiful room,” says one visitor, “but there was very little in it beside the necessary furniture, which was neat, but cheap and simple, except a few pieces which had come from Embley and Lea Hurst. A large arm-chair, in which Miss Nightingale would sometimes sit, stood between two of the three windows. There were few pictures on the walls—a photograph of Lord Lawrence's portrait, a water-colour of an Egyptian sunset, and one or two other gifts. The two things of most meaning were a long chromolithograph of ‘the ground about Sebastopol,’ as she called it in her Will[183]—this was opposite her on the right; and, on the mantelpiece, exactly facing her bed, a framed chromolithographed text, ‘It is I. Be not afraid.’ The drawing-room was loftier and more severe, and on the walls were some fine engravings and photographs of the Sistine ceiling. There were many bookcases in the drawing-room, the back drawing-room, andthe dining-room, mostly full of Blue-books. As a little girl, I spent many hours in the dining-room while my mother was upstairs, and can bear witness that except Blue-books the only reading wasThe Ring and the Book.”
Occasionally Miss Nightingale would be seen standing or moving about in her room; what was then remarked was the grace and dignity of her bearing, though the “willowy figure” which distinguished her in earlier years had now become large. More often she received her visitors in bed or on her couch. What they then observed was the head, the face, the hands. Her head, in girlhood and early womanhood, had been remarked as small. Possibly it had grown somewhat, and something must be put down to the increased size of the face as affecting the appearance; but at any rate her head in later years was certainly large. An Army Surgeon who visited Miss Nightingale frequently in the 'eighties and 'nineties tells me that he was always struck by the massiveness of the head, comparable, he thought, to Mr. Gladstone's. There was an unusually fine rounded form of the fore-part of the head just above where the hair begins. The eyes were not specially remarkable, though there was a suggestion of intellectual keenness in them. The nose was fine and rather prominent; the mouth, small and firm. The hands were small and refined. Every one who saw her felt that he was in the presence of a woman of personality—of marked character, energy, and capacity. As her visitor entered, Miss Nightingale would bend forward from her bed or couch with a smile of welcome; the visitor would be invited to an easy chair beside her, and talk would begin.
In her youth Miss Nightingale was a brilliant talker, as witnesses cited in an earlier chapter have told us. In later years, too, she had flashes of brilliance. Madame Mohl, whose standard was high, wrote to her husband from Lea Hurst in 1873: “Mr. Jowett spent three days here. He is a man of mind; I think he would suit you. He is very fond of Flo, which also would suit you. She is here, and her conversation is most nourishing. I would give a great deal for you to be here to enjoy it. She is really eloquent. Yesterday she quite surprised me.”[184]But for the most partMiss Nightingale's talk was rather earnest, inquiring, sometimes searching, than sparkling or eloquent. “She is worse than a Royal Commission to answer,” said Colonel Yule; “and, in the most gracious, charming manner possible, immediately finds out all I don't know.”[185]Younger visitors sometimes felt in awe of her; she could flash out a searching question upon a rash generalization as formidably as Mr. Gladstone himself. She was interested in everything except what was trivial. Her intellectual vitality was remarkable; visitors who knew nothing of her special interests or pursuits were yet delighted by the stimulating freshness of her talk. She liked to keep herselfau courantwith all that was going on in the political and learned worlds. The letters to her from more than one Indian Viceroy show that the pleasant gossip from the lobbies or the Universities, with which she relieved her discourses on drains, was keenly appreciated. If the visitor talked of matters which appealed to her, she was instantly curious of detail. “Yes,” she would say, leaning forward, “and what about this or that? and have you thought of doing so and so?” Or if some difficulty were propounded, “I wonder if I could help you at all? The person to speak to is Mr. A. or Mr. B. Do you think that he would be so good as to come and see me?” “I am sure he would feel honoured.” “Then do you think I might write to him? or you will ask him? Very well, then we will see what can be done.” And so a new network of helpful influence would be made. To younger visitors—a London clergyman, it may be, or a student, or a budding official—she would show something of the maternal solicitude that was conspicuous in her intercourse with nursing “daughters.” “But you are not looking well to-day. You have been sitting up too late? Yes? Then you must promise me to take better care of yourself.” Or, “Are you careful to take regular meals? No? Then you must let an old nurse give you some good advice.” The humour which was characteristic of Miss Nightingale came more readily perhaps to her pen than to her tongue; but she always enjoyed ajoke in conversation—even, as we have heard already from one of her nursing friends, at her own expense. Sometimes she was teasing. A High Church young lady once went to South Street. She was delighted with her interview, but Miss Nightingale, she said, “laughed at High Church curates a good deal: she said they had no foreheads.” She sometimes quizzed even her greatest friends. She used to talk with humorous indignation of Mr. Jowett's God as a “man-jelly,” in contrast with the future life of work whichshelooked forward to.
It was in the bedroom above described, or in the smaller room in front with which it communicated, that the greater part of Miss Nightingale's life for forty-five years was passed. She seldom went out of doors in London. It was believed that occasionally, at times when her heart and nerves were giving her less than the usual sense of weakness, she went out on foot into the Park; but the belief was only whispered: it was a point of honour amongst her circle to respect her house-ridden seclusion. The secret may now be divulged, on the authority of many notes from Sir Harry Verney, that he lured her out now and then for a morning drive and stroll in the Park, especially in rhododendron-time, “to remind her of Embley,” as aforesaid. Miss Nightingale, except in the few travel-years of her youth, had little enjoyment from nature in its grander or larger aspects, but she knew how to find pleasure in the commoner sights and sounds; in flowers and birds, and in London skies. There was a tree in the garden of Dorchester House where the birds used to gather, and from which they flew to be fed at Miss Nightingale's window. She had studied the dietary of birds as carefully as of hospital patients, and imparted the rudiments of such lore to the “Dicky-Bird Society.”[186]In the country she liked to have a view from her bedroom of trees and flowers, and often in the early morning watches she wrote down her observations. Her balcony at Lea Hurst gave her a great deal of pleasure. It is large, being the top of the drawing-room bow; you see a wide stretch of sky from it, and it commands the view described by Mrs. Gaskell.[187]At Claydon she hadher pet birds and squirrels, and used to write about them to Sir Harry's grandchildren. She took a great interest in elementary education, and insisted almost as much upon the importance of simple nature studies as upon that of physical training. “On very fine noondays in London,” she wrote (Dec. 1888), “when there is nearly as much light as there is in a country dusk, the storm-like effects of the sun peeping out are more like the light streaming from the Glory in Heaven of the old Italian Masters than anything I know. And I wonder whether the poor people see it. And in old days when I walked out of doors, the murky effect at the end of the perspective of a long dull street running E. and W. was a real peep into heaven. I should teach these things in Board Schools to children condemned to live their lives in the streets of London, as I would teach the botany of leaves and trees and flowers to country children.” Cheap popular books were much wanted giving account of “the habits, structure, and characters (what they are about, not classification) of plants as living beings”; and of birds treated in like fashion, and not from the point of view of ornithological classification. “I had a lovely little popular book with woodcuts, published in Calcutta,” she wrote,[188]“on the plants of Bengal. The author, an Englishman, offered me to write one on English plants in the same fashion; but one of the most popular and enterprising of all our publishers refused on the ground that it would not tell in Board School examinations and therefore would not pay.”
During the years following her father's death (1874), Miss Nightingale devoted much time to the society of her mother, and this took her for a considerable part of each year out of London. In 1874 she and her mother spent a month at Claydon (Aug.–Sept.), and then two months at Lea Hurst. In 1875 the experiment was tried of taking a house at Upper Norwood, and there Miss Nightingale livedwith her mother for some weeks (June–July). “I am out of humanity's reach,” wrote Florence to Madame Mohl (June 18): “in a red villa like a monster lobster: a place which has noraison d'êtreexcept theraison d'êtreof lobsters or crabs—viz. to go backward and to feed and be fed upon. Stranger vicissitudes than mine in life few men have had—vicissitudes from slavery to power, and from power to slavery again. It does not seem like a vicissitude: a red villa at Norwood: yet it is the strangest I yet have had. It is the only time for 22 years that my work has not been the first cause for where I should live and how I should live. Here it is the last. It is the caricature of a life.” The lobster-like villa was, however, soon given up. Mrs. Nightingale longed to be taken to her home—though, strictly, hers no longer, and from July to October she and Florence were at Lea Hurst. The year's routine now became fixed. The care of Mrs. Nightingale in London was undertaken by her nephew, Mr. Shore Smith, and his wife. She lived with them in their house in York Place, and from July or August in each year to November or December the Shore Smith family, with Mrs. Nightingale and her companion, moved to Lea Hurst, and there also Florence went—sometimes going to Lea Hurst before the others arrived, and sometimes staying there when they were absent.[189]Mr. Shore Smith was “more than son and daughter to her,” Mrs. Nightingale said; and Florence, during her residence at Lea Hurst, devoted a stated number of hours each day—generally two or three in the morning—to companionship with her mother. In the country, as in South Street, Miss Nightingale constantly had nursing friends to stay with her. “At Lea Hurst,” writes the friend already quoted, “she was as good to us as in London. I remember being there once with another of her pupils, and she told us that the rooms assigned to us had been the nurseries of her childhood. Long drives were contrived for us; luncheon was packed in the waggonette, and excursions were mapped out. During our visit Mr. Jowett came for a few days; he was verypleasant to us and full of kindness. I remember his speaking of a quality in our hostess which always struck us; I mean the thoroughness in all details of her hospitality, even to putting flowers in our rooms, gathered by herself in the garden. Miss Nightingale thought one of us was tired, and said she was not to get up too early in the morning. Mr. Jowett reminded us in this connection of the man who made a virtue of always rising very early and who was ‘conceited all the morning and cross all the afternoon.’”
At Lea Hurst, during these years, Miss Nightingale devoted herself to her poorer neighbours, and threw into the task the thoroughness and system which characterized all her doings. She took a part in establishing a village coffee-room and a village library, and in organizing mothers' meetings. She gave doles to all deserving families. Thedossierswhich she kept of their characters and circumstances were as careful as those referring to the Nightingale Probationers. There are sheets and sheets amongst her papers, on which she entered the quantities of each kind of provision supplied to each family, as elaborate as the purveying accounts which she kept at Scutari. She was a sort of National Health Insurance scheme (non-contributory) for the neighbourhood; for she employed a doctor to attend the sick and infirm at her expense, and to report fully to her on all the cases. There are fifty letters from him in this sort during a single year, and as many of a like kind from the village schoolmaster, whom she commissioned to give extra tuition to promising pupils. There were those who thought that Miss Nightingale wasted on these rustic cares energies that might swell the great wave of the world. Among the number was her old friend, Madame Mohl. “Now, my own Flo,” she wrote (Oct. 16, 1879), “you believe me, I am sure, to love you truly; therefore you will bear what I say, and also you believe me to have common sense: you can't help believing it, I defy you! Now I declare that if you don't leave that absurd place, Lea Hurst, immediately, you must be a little insane—partially, not entirely; and that if you saw another person knowingly risking a life that might be usefuldans les grandes choses d'ensembleto potter after sick individuals, and if you werein a lucid moment you would say, ‘That person is not quite sane or she has not the strength of will to follow her judgment in her actions.’” Miss Nightingale was not well pleased by this letter. She felt something of the sort herself; but it is one thing to doubt our own wisdom, and quite another to hear it doubted even by our oldest friends. Miss Nightingale replied that she was doing her duty, which was a duty of affection, to her mother, and Madame Mohl, with ready tact, explained her letter away by saying that the real reason of it was only a selfish impatience to see her dear “Flochen” in London.
Miss Nightingale's mother was now very old; her mind was barely coherent; and it would perhaps have been much the same to her if Florence had not been by her side. Yet the actual presence was a great comfort; and Miss Nightingale, whose calls in earlier life had estranged her somewhat from her mother, was the more anxious to be with her now. There were gleams of brightness in the mother's manner which touched the daughter deeply. “Her mind,” she afterwards wrote, “was like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel—darkened, blotted, effaced, and with great gaps; but if you looked and looked and accustomed your eye to the dimness and the broken lights, there were the noble forms transparent through the darkness.”[190]Mother and daughter had much converse on spiritual things. At other times, pride and pleasure in her famous daughter were mixed in the mother's mind with the regrets of earlier years. “Where is Florence?” she once asked, in the daughter's absence; “is she still in her hospital? I suppose she will never marry now.” She loved to have Longfellow's poem read to her; “it is all true,” she would say, “all real.” When Florence came, the mother loved her presence dearly. “Who are you? Oh, yes, I see you are Florence. Stay with me. Do not leave me. It makes me so happy to see you sitting by me. You come down to teach us to love; but you have so much that is important to do, you must not stay with me.” “Oh, are you my dearest Florence? I ought to kiss your hand, I am sure.” The daughter's wit cheered her mother. “You have a right to laugh,” shesaid; “so few of us have. You are so good—so much better than the rest of us. You do me so much good.”
Something of the same impression was made by Miss Nightingale upon all who visited her, whether at Lea Hurst or in her upper room at South Street. She was often lonely and despondent, and accounted herself, as we have heard, the weakest of human vessels, the lowest of God's servants. To those who knew her well, she was a tower of strength. Mr. Jowett used to say that he never saw Miss Nightingale or received a letter from her without feeling strengthened for his duties. The thought of her working in solitude was constantly with him. “I think no day passes,” he wrote to her, “in which I do not think of you and your work with pride and affection.” If men admired Miss Nightingale, women worshipped her. To many a devoted woman, who had learnt from her example and who was inspired by her friendship, she was “My Mistress and Queen,” or “My Hero Saint.” Women of the great world laid at her feet an almost equal adoration, and young girls had something of the same feeling. “I used at first to be shy with her,” says one of them, “but when I was older and talked more freely, I found her the most charming person to talk to. She always seemed interested and glad to see one. I always used to come away with a sort of buoyant feeling. She seemed to raise one into a different atmosphere.” “I shall ever remember my visit to you,” wrote her “ever affectionate Luise” (the Grand Duchess of Baden) in 1879, “as one of those moments coming directly out of God's hand and leading men's hearts up to Him in thankfulness. It belongs to those things which are in themselves a sanctuary.”[191]And Lady Ashburton, who still came sometimes to see the friend of earlier days, her “Beloved Zoë,” wrote: “I like to think of you in your tower—so high up above us all”; and, again, “I am humbled in the dust when I think of what you say of me—poor, wretched, profitableless me, and yourself the guiding-star to so many of our lives.”
The friends to whom Miss Nightingale wrote most regularly on matters other than business, and in whose visits she took the greatest intellectual pleasure, were, next to Mr. Jowett, Monsieur and Madame Mohl. Her letters to them show some of her more general interests:—
(To M. Mohl.)Feb.16 [1868].… I see Mad. Blanchecotte is publishing herImpressions de Femme—what is that? Do men publish theirImpressions d'Homme? I think it is a pity that women should always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great curiosity—a peculiar strange race, like the Aztecs; or rather like Dr. Howe's Idiots, whom, after the “unremitting exertions of two years,” he “actually taught to eat with a spoon.”(To M. Mohl.)South St.,Nov.24 [1872].… Insensible, cruel, aggravating man! you break off just where I want to hear. The only thing that amuses me is Papal Infallibility. The only thing that interests me not painfully (out of my Chaos)—always excepting Livingstone, East African Slave-trade, Central African exploration—is Prussian Politics. Not that I suppose you to be very well satisfied with them, but I want toknowabout the doings—Bismarck, Old Catholics, Infallibilists—this extraordinary conflict between the old man at Rome and the Junker-Devil-statesman, Bismarck; also about the struggle with the Upper House and the de-feudalizing Bill. I am athirst to knowyourmind about these things.… Have you seen Stanley'sHow I found Livingstone? I have desired the publisher to send you a copy. It is, without exception, the very worst book on the very best subject I ever saw in all my life.… Still I can't help devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of Livingstone than what Livingstone in the despatches has told himself already. But then Stanley and his newspaper have discovered and relieved Livingstone, when all our Government, all our Societies, all our Subscriptions, all the Queen's men could not set Livingstone up again!… Quetelet has sent me his last books—AnthropométrieandPhysique Sociale—with a charming letter. I answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to prepare his second edition at once—the first (1869) of thePhysique Socialebeing entirely exhausted.[192]Did I tell you that when Mr. Jowett was[316]elected chairman for the subjects of Final Examination at Oxford, I insisted on Social Physics being one?(To Madame Mohl.)South St.,Dec.19 [1873].… You asked me what Mill'sAutobiographywas like: and as it is a book impossible to describe, I send it to you. I think it almost the most curious and interesting of modern books I ever read; but curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. I should think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of growth from the time he was three. But quite, quite as extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them wasunreasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. He has written me pages and pages, which I never could understand—from a man so able—till I read hisAutobiography: that—there being Laws was no proof of there being a Law-giver; that—if evil were to produce good, there ought to bemoreof it! Then, you see he says in his book that his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the “monstrous superstition” that this worldcouldbe made on the best possible design for perfecting Good thro' Evil!… And I still think theAutobiography, its high tone, its disinterested nobility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring (modern) books I know. But then please to remember: when Mill left the India Office he might most materially have helped all my Sanitary Commissions, Irrigation and Civilizing Schemes for India. He did nothing. He was quite incapable of understanding anything but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary Office aspect in short, for India. As for that jargon about the “Inspiration” coming from “woman,” I really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if it has any at all. I am sure that my part in Administration has been the very reverse of “Inspiration”: it has been the fruit of dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men which came from what I suppose is called their “inspiration”: whatIshould call their Theory without Practical knowledge or patient personal experience.(To Madame Mohl.)South St.,Feb.27 [1875].… Do read Pascal'sProvinciales. There is nothing like it in the[317]world; it is as witty as Molière; it is as closely reasoned as Aristotle; it has a style transparent like Plato. You said you had not read it. I have a great mind to send it you. I read it every year (as Lord Morpeth said he did Miss Austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it gives my imagination. Voltaire said, did he not? that tho' Pascal was “fou,” he fixed the language.
(To M. Mohl.)Feb.16 [1868].… I see Mad. Blanchecotte is publishing herImpressions de Femme—what is that? Do men publish theirImpressions d'Homme? I think it is a pity that women should always look upon themselves (and men look upon them) as a great curiosity—a peculiar strange race, like the Aztecs; or rather like Dr. Howe's Idiots, whom, after the “unremitting exertions of two years,” he “actually taught to eat with a spoon.”
(To M. Mohl.)South St.,Nov.24 [1872].… Insensible, cruel, aggravating man! you break off just where I want to hear. The only thing that amuses me is Papal Infallibility. The only thing that interests me not painfully (out of my Chaos)—always excepting Livingstone, East African Slave-trade, Central African exploration—is Prussian Politics. Not that I suppose you to be very well satisfied with them, but I want toknowabout the doings—Bismarck, Old Catholics, Infallibilists—this extraordinary conflict between the old man at Rome and the Junker-Devil-statesman, Bismarck; also about the struggle with the Upper House and the de-feudalizing Bill. I am athirst to knowyourmind about these things.… Have you seen Stanley'sHow I found Livingstone? I have desired the publisher to send you a copy. It is, without exception, the very worst book on the very best subject I ever saw in all my life.… Still I can't help devouring the book to the end, though it tells little more of Livingstone than what Livingstone in the despatches has told himself already. But then Stanley and his newspaper have discovered and relieved Livingstone, when all our Government, all our Societies, all our Subscriptions, all the Queen's men could not set Livingstone up again!… Quetelet has sent me his last books—AnthropométrieandPhysique Sociale—with a charming letter. I answered by a violent and vehement exhortation to him to prepare his second edition at once—the first (1869) of thePhysique Socialebeing entirely exhausted.[192]Did I tell you that when Mr. Jowett was[316]elected chairman for the subjects of Final Examination at Oxford, I insisted on Social Physics being one?
(To Madame Mohl.)South St.,Dec.19 [1873].… You asked me what Mill'sAutobiographywas like: and as it is a book impossible to describe, I send it to you. I think it almost the most curious and interesting of modern books I ever read; but curious just as much for its nonsense as for its sense. I should think the account he gives of his intellectual and moral growth from the age of three quite unique: quite as singular as if a man were able to describe all his anatomy and physiology in a state of growth from the time he was three. But quite, quite as extraordinary as this is his own stupidity in not seeing that very many of his moral and intellectual, and especially of his religious, opinions were fixed inalterably for him by the process he underwent, so that all his reasoning afterwards upon them wasunreasoning: fixed as much beyond his power to change, or even to see that a change was desirable or possible, as the eyes of a man who becomes stone-blind in his youth, or the right arm of a man who is paralysed on that side, or &c., &c., &c. He has written me pages and pages, which I never could understand—from a man so able—till I read hisAutobiography: that—there being Laws was no proof of there being a Law-giver; that—if evil were to produce good, there ought to bemoreof it! Then, you see he says in his book that his wife was to be applauded, because she had thrown aside the “monstrous superstition” that this worldcouldbe made on the best possible design for perfecting Good thro' Evil!… And I still think theAutobiography, its high tone, its disinterested nobility of feeling and love of mankind, one of the most inspiring (modern) books I know. But then please to remember: when Mill left the India Office he might most materially have helped all my Sanitary Commissions, Irrigation and Civilizing Schemes for India. He did nothing. He was quite incapable of understanding anything but schemes on paper, correspondence, the literary Office aspect in short, for India. As for that jargon about the “Inspiration” coming from “woman,” I really am incapable of conceiving its meaning: if it has any at all. I am sure that my part in Administration has been the very reverse of “Inspiration”: it has been the fruit of dogged work, of hard experience and observation, such as few men have undergone: correcting by close detail work the errors of men which came from what I suppose is called their “inspiration”: whatIshould call their Theory without Practical knowledge or patient personal experience.
(To Madame Mohl.)South St.,Feb.27 [1875].… Do read Pascal'sProvinciales. There is nothing like it in the[317]world; it is as witty as Molière; it is as closely reasoned as Aristotle; it has a style transparent like Plato. You said you had not read it. I have a great mind to send it you. I read it every year (as Lord Morpeth said he did Miss Austen's novels) for the pure pleasure it gives my imagination. Voltaire said, did he not? that tho' Pascal was “fou,” he fixed the language.
Nothing that she read in these years pleased her more than Mr. John Morley's fine address on “Popular Culture,” now included in hisMiscellanies, which first appeared in theFortnightly Reviewfor November 1876. She wrote to him to express her grateful admiration and to ask if she might be allowed to distribute copies of the paper. Mr. Morley, who had already arranged for a cheap reprint, sent her several copies.
In January 1876 came the death of M. Mohl—to Madame Mohl an irreparable loss; she was never the same woman after it; to Miss Nightingale also a heavy loss. “I am grieved to see,” wrote Mr. Jowett to her (Jan. 7), “that you have lost a friend, one of the best and truest you ever had. His death must bring back many old recollections. Your father told me of his fetching you away from the Convent when you were ill, and, as he thought, saving your life.” But it was not only that his death revived affectionate recollections. M. Mohl had a great admiration for Miss Nightingale's intellectual powers. He loved to talk and correspond with her on politics, literature, and philosophy, and she regarded his studies in Eastern religion as a real contribution to “theodikë,” one of her principal preoccupations.
Miss Nightingale lost another friend a few weeks later, whose death greatly moved her:—
(Dr. E. A. Parkes to Miss Nightingale.)Southampton,March 9(dictated). Your letter reached me on what must be, I believe, my deathbed. Perhaps before you receive this I shall be summoned to my account. For what you say I thank and bless you. About two months hence the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will publish a little book on “the personal care of health.” A copy will be sent to you. I had small space, only 26 pages, but I put in as much sanitary information as I could, of a very simple kind. I hope it may be a little useful to you. It is addressed entirely to the poor. And now thank[318]you and bless you for all the support you have always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, (signed)E. A. Parkes.(Miss Nightingale to Dr. H. W. Acland.)35 South Street,March 17 [1876]. The death of our dear friend, Dr. Parkes, fills me with grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the Army Medical School at Netley. He was a man of most rare modesty: of singular gifts. His influence at the School—there was not a man who did not leave the better for having been under him—is irreplaceable. But the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the School as a centre has extended and will extend wherever the English language is spoken, and beyond. Dr. Parkes died like a true Christian hero “at his post,” and with the simplicity of one. I think I have never known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such forgetfulness of self. His death was like a resurrection. When he was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody:allabout what ought to be donefor the School, for the spread of hygienic knowledge, for other useful and Army purposes:noneabout himself.… On March 9, when it was evident he could not last many days, he commendedthe Schoolto Sir William Jenner and dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of himself that he might be “summoned to his last account” before I received it. On March 13 he rallied. I was allowed to send down a Trained Nurse. On March 15 he died.… Let us, as he went to the sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise—as the heroes of old—so part with him. But let us try to save what he would have saved.…
(Dr. E. A. Parkes to Miss Nightingale.)Southampton,March 9(dictated). Your letter reached me on what must be, I believe, my deathbed. Perhaps before you receive this I shall be summoned to my account. For what you say I thank and bless you. About two months hence the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge will publish a little book on “the personal care of health.” A copy will be sent to you. I had small space, only 26 pages, but I put in as much sanitary information as I could, of a very simple kind. I hope it may be a little useful to you. It is addressed entirely to the poor. And now thank[318]you and bless you for all the support you have always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, (signed)E. A. Parkes.
(Miss Nightingale to Dr. H. W. Acland.)35 South Street,March 17 [1876]. The death of our dear friend, Dr. Parkes, fills me with grief: and also with anxiety for the future of the Army Medical School at Netley. He was a man of most rare modesty: of singular gifts. His influence at the School—there was not a man who did not leave the better for having been under him—is irreplaceable. But the knowledge and instruction he has diffused from the School as a centre has extended and will extend wherever the English language is spoken, and beyond. Dr. Parkes died like a true Christian hero “at his post,” and with the simplicity of one. I think I have never known such disinterestedness, such self-abnegation, such forgetfulness of self. His death was like a resurrection. When he was dying, he dictated letters or gave messages to everybody:allabout what ought to be donefor the School, for the spread of hygienic knowledge, for other useful and Army purposes:noneabout himself.… On March 9, when it was evident he could not last many days, he commendedthe Schoolto Sir William Jenner and dictated a letter to me about hygienic interests, merely saying of himself that he might be “summoned to his last account” before I received it. On March 13 he rallied. I was allowed to send down a Trained Nurse. On March 15 he died.… Let us, as he went to the sacrifice of himself (he was only 56) with joy and praise—as the heroes of old—so part with him. But let us try to save what he would have saved.…
The Professors at the Army Medical School had written to Miss Nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the institution was once more threatened. She begged Dr. Acland, who was a friend of the War Secretary (Mr. Gathorne Hardy), to do what he could; and meanwhile she took direct action herself. She drew up for Mr. Hardy, as she had done years before for Mr. Cardwell, the case for the defence of the School; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent Sir Harry Verney to present the documents to the minister in person. “Mr. Hardy listened attentively while I read your papers,” reported Sir Harry. “I emphasised passages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and initials. He said that he had not decided the matter, and I replied, ‘And Miss Nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.’ I shall congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest Florence, if your representationssave the School, for I know that such success cheers you more than anything else.” Three weeks later, the minister returned the papers to Sir Harry, announced that the School would not be touched, and said he might tell Miss Nightingale that he would make the appointments she had suggested.
Some unfinished letters from M. Mohl, found in his blotter after his death, were sent to Miss Nightingale by Madame Mohl, who leaned much on her “Flochen's” sympathy in her loss:—
(To Madame Mohl.)Lea Hurst,August6 [1876].Dearest very Dearest Friend—Indeed I do think I was worthy of him if always thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and (formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he hasnone, now he isalwaysmaking glorious progress, else this world is a nonsense), made me so. But why do you distress yourself (your loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had him?Hewould not have said so. You found him a melancholy man: you made him a happy one. You gave zest to his life: all that it wanted. He always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. O thank God and say (like the Lord of Ossory about his son): I had rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. Who has been so blest as you? Where will you find so perfect a man? And you felt it, I know you did. And he felt your feeling it.… For M. Mohl's glorious life on earth I thank God: but I thank Him yet more, because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more glorious—as Milton says: “death, called life, which usfrom lifedoth sever.” Fare you well. May God be with us all. Your old Flo. It is 20 years to-day since I came back from the Crimea. It is 15 since I lost Sidney Herbert.(To the same.)South St.,Feb.7 [1878].Dearest Friend, ever Dearest—Indeed I do: I think daily and nightly of him and of you: the world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems as if a great light were gone out of it. And the people who survive seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those I knew once, loved once.… No: we shan't give a doit to help the Turks. What! crush all those struggling young peoples, Sclav and Greek, back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of the Turk? We could not if we would. I don't feel very hopeful: for the worst Eurasian Government, we are allowing the worst European Government to substitute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces[320]anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act alone in the coming freedom. May God give liberty to the Christian provinces to work outtheir ownsalvation!
(To Madame Mohl.)Lea Hurst,August6 [1876].Dearest very Dearest Friend—Indeed I do think I was worthy of him if always thinking of him, rejoicing in his progress in perfection and (formerly) grieving with his troubles and cares (but now he hasnone, now he isalwaysmaking glorious progress, else this world is a nonsense), made me so. But why do you distress yourself (your loss is great enough, immeasurable, irreparable, for this world) with saying such things about not having made the most of him while you had him?Hewould not have said so. You found him a melancholy man: you made him a happy one. You gave zest to his life: all that it wanted. He always felt this himself: he could not bear to be without you. O thank God and say (like the Lord of Ossory about his son): I had rather have my dead son than any one else's living one. Who has been so blest as you? Where will you find so perfect a man? And you felt it, I know you did. And he felt your feeling it.… For M. Mohl's glorious life on earth I thank God: but I thank Him yet more, because this was only a beginning of life infinitely more glorious—as Milton says: “death, called life, which usfrom lifedoth sever.” Fare you well. May God be with us all. Your old Flo. It is 20 years to-day since I came back from the Crimea. It is 15 since I lost Sidney Herbert.
(To the same.)South St.,Feb.7 [1878].Dearest Friend, ever Dearest—Indeed I do: I think daily and nightly of him and of you: the world is darker every year to me, and darker without him: for it seems as if a great light were gone out of it. And the people who survive seem so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable compared with those I knew once, loved once.… No: we shan't give a doit to help the Turks. What! crush all those struggling young peoples, Sclav and Greek, back under the hideous massacres and oppression and corruption of the Turk? We could not if we would. I don't feel very hopeful: for the worst Eurasian Government, we are allowing the worst European Government to substitute itself. Turkey was falling to pieces[320]anyhow by its own bad weight; and we should not have let Russia act alone in the coming freedom. May God give liberty to the Christian provinces to work outtheir ownsalvation!
Miss Nightingale's interest in the Eastern Question, moved by the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, had been heightened by her close friendship with Miss Paulina Irby. Of the women friends whom Miss Nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly, Miss Irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual sense be called her equal. Miss Irby was a woman of the highest cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil.[193]There was a sort of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and Miss Nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which Miss Irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. She was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, and Florence had first met her at Embley in 1869. She was one of the many women who revered the name of Florence Nightingale, and she had spent some months at Kaiserswerth. She was enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to Miss Nightingale's example and sympathy. The good that Miss Irby did was great; in promoting education among the Sclavonic Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and refugees. During the years 1874–79 Miss Irby was often in England, to collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the East. Miss Nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very familiar with some aspects of the Eastern Question. This interest, combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the Indian frontier, formed a link of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone.
Was Miss Nightingale's life happy or unhappy? Her sister used to say to her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: “You lead such an interesting life.” Mr. Jowett told her that her life was a blessed one, and that she ought so to think it. He always sent her a New Year's letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:—